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Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has announced the new Bruce Willis sci-fi

Further Details:
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has announced DVD ($30.99) and Blu-ray ($35.99) releases of Looper for December 31st. Extras will include commentary with Actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt and Director Rian Johnson, Deleted Scenes Commentary by Director Rian Johnson, a Looper Animated Trailer, a Scoring Looper feature ("Time Machine", "A Day In The Life", "Revelations"), and an Evil Demon Golf Ball From Hell easter egg. The Blu-ray release will also include a Science of Time Travel featurette, an Abe Gathers the Troops test, and an UltraViolet digital copy of the film. Package artwork is attached:

Synopsis

Quote: In the futuristic action thriller Looper, time travel will be invented – but it will be illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target 30 years into the past where a “looper” – a hired gun, like Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) – is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good…until the day the mob decides to “close the loop,” sending back Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) for assassination. The film is written and directed by Rian Johnson and also stars Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, and Jeff Daniels.

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1. Abe, the mob boss from the future who was sent back from the future to run the present-day mob, goes out of his way to explain to Young Joe (read: the audience) that it is dangerous to have someone from the future running around in the past/present. If that's true, why is Abe there? Does his younger self in the year 2044 know about him being there?

2. Why would the mob mandate that loopers in the present day kill their own future selves? It's extremely risky to assume that anyone would be okay with doing such a thing. It's already risky enough that they hire junkies, some of them with telekinetic powers, to do their dirty work. Are they trying to test the loopers' loyalty? Are they just being sadistic? It would seem more logical to send the future retired loopers to other looper assassins, and therefore keep them in the dark about their ultimate fate. This would make them much more obedient too.

3. So we learn early on in the film that whatever happens to people in the present will carry the effects to people in the future, including body mutilation and death. And this happens no matter what timeline the future people are living in. So why did the mob in the present find it necessary to cut off Young Seth's body parts in order to lure Old Seth just so they can fatally shoot Old Seth before eventually killing Young Seth? Why didn't they just shoot Young Seth in the head? They would have literally killed two birds (or, men) with one stone (or, bullet) without so much blood and carnage. And as we clearly see at the end of the film, if you kill someone in the present, including yourself, their future selves will cleanly disappear, even if their future selves are residing in the present. My only guess is that the mob wanted to be extremely sadistic and dole out the worst punishment possible to anyone who lets someone from the future run loose, especially if it's themselves. And speaking of killing your future self...

4. How does Sara know about loopers? Young Joe seems surprised that she knows, and he asks her about it. But she never answers.

5. What exactly does Young Joe accomplish by killing himself at the end? Old Joe tells Young Joe in the diner that the Rainmaker "saw his mom get shot." Now of course, that was somewhere during the original timeline where Old Joe does not survive his execution. But what that means is that the rainmaker apparently rose to power even without any interaction from Old or Young Joe. Why didn't he at least try to kill Old Joe? Old Joe wouldn't be able to retaliate without seriously hurting himself. And even if Old Joe succeeded in killing Sara so that he could get to Cid, it would have given Young Joe all the time he needed to kill Old Joe and try to find Cid. He could then use his excessive amount of silver and gold to raise Cid in a positive environment. After all, Cid likes Young Joe, and he's a smart kid, so Cid would be a low-maintenance child to care for. And if he succeeded in protecting Sara, then his job would be even easier with the two-parent household, AND his enormous sum of money. Not to mention the fact that Old Joe killed the rest of the mob in the present day, so they're safe from their enemies.

If Young Joe was serious about killing Old Joe, he should have done it when Old Joe pulled up in front of him and told him to go "live your life," instead of shooting randomly at the truck that Old Joe was driving when he clearly could have hit him.

Again, I'm working out a review right now, so I don't want to talk too much, but the emotional arc in Looper is comparatively even more complex because it is cyclical – Old Joe and Young Joe have reverse arcs as the film.

And I still don't accept that it's mainstream anymore than Brick or Brothers Bloom are mainstream. They all use mainstream tropes in non-mainstream ways.

I wouldn't go so far as to accuse me of confirmation bias. Seems as unfair as me deploying "delusional".

I'm not sure you could say that the film continuously explores the idea of time travel. It introduces the dynamic timeline in a aesthetically pleasing but empty sequence, and then fulfills that narrative expectation at the end of the film. It does not texture this element of time travel in any different way than originally introduced. No other element of time travel is interrogated in the film. The emotional scars of murder is literalized through physical wounds. Not the most impressive of metaphors, I should think.

As for the film's liminal genre state, I wouldn't accept this as proof of its non-mainstream approach. Multifaceted approach is not mutually exclusive with mainstream. Seems particularly unfair considering the globalized approach to most mainstream films, which is to say that there is an attempt to be all things to all audiences in order to maximize profit. Looper is a sci-fi film, a family drama, and a quest film. But it is not entirely successful in any of these categories. We're conflating this issue with its status as mainstream or not.

It's a lazy comparison, but it's particularly evocative: a better time travel movie is 12 Monkeys. Hands down. Also, a mainstream wide release film that stars Bruce Willis, 12 Monkeys is entirely successful in challenging the audience and its characters. The emotional arc that Willis goes through is leaps and bounds more successful than the gesture at the end of Looper.

I honestly don't know how to reply to this outside of saying your wrong. Looper does challenging things with the narrative and themes, Bruce Willis stars in all kinds of non-mainstream films (just this year he appeared in Moonrise Kingdom). I don't think there's anything bland or superficial about the cyclical, dual headed main character journey. There's no reason a drama can't feature action sequences, and even less reason to not contrast emotional problems with a science fiction premise. In fact, by acknowledging these dueling elements you're acknowledging the film's non-mainstream approach to the material. The characters and filmmakers continuously explore the time travel, and do it from both expected and unique angles.

In the end, you're just proving my point. You had expectations of the film based on the trailers' promise of a mainstream, sci-fi/action experience, and have based your experience entirely on those expectations.

But hey, I'll be reviewing it in a month anyway, so hopefully I'll make myself more clear by then.

I'm not saying there isn't subtext to this film; I'm saying there isn't "oodles" of subtext. It's mainstream because it was released in wide release, stars Bruce Willis and doesn't do anything challenging with the premise of the film. It's intentionally focused on the emotional journey of the protagonist, but does so in the blandest and most superficial of ways. Part of the film's failure (for me) is that the film isn't sure what it wants to be. Is it an action film or is it a family drama? Is it an exploration of the heavy emotional cost of murder or is it an exploration of the problems of time travel?

If this is a time travel movie, but the characters and the filmmakers don't appear interested in discussing time travel, why was this made a time travel movie and not another near-future sci-fi film? Why time travel?

I apologize for deploying the word "delusional". A better and more apt word would have been to call your insinuation about the audience to be disingenuous. You think this film is deep; I do not. I don't blame the film's failure on the audience; I blame it on the film.

I'd argue you missed oodles of subtext and thematic content, mlcm. I'm not willing to accept 'Looper is, by definition, a mainstream film'. Mostly because I don't think the statement makes sense. The 'definition' of a mainstream film is already subjective, so I don't understand how Looper fits any kind of objective definition. You also omitted the part of my argument where I referred to 'surface level' filmmaking. My point is that it went deeper than most audiences were willing to look. Had it been treated differently by advertisers people might've been prepped. I never said 'people just don't get it' and I resent being called 'delusional'.

This is one of those things where I can totally see both sides of the debate. It's not meant to be a film interested in the mechanics of time travel, and I understand that. However, the alternative presented to me, the emotional journey of a hitman, wasn't very convincing on an emotional level. I don't believe that Looper earned the ending. On the other hand, I enjoyed most of the film on an aesthetic level. It's a film without an emotional core that manages to succeed on superficial levels, so I'm completely amenable to both sides of this.

Although, an argument I won't accept is the "mainstream audience expected mainstream film". Looper is, by definition, a mainstream film. And in terms of form and content, it didn't do anything either new or interesting with time travel. Looper was as middle-brow as I could have expected. This isn't a criticism on my part. I'm merely stating that the argument about how "people just didn't get it" is delusional.

Probably because the telekinesis storyline was forgotten for half the movie and the ending was weak. I also could have sworn Jeff Bridges was the future version of the blond "gat" kid - but they ended up doing nothing with both those characters. Waste.

That said, JGL and Willis were both amazing! I wish it had been better as well.

The TK thing was set up and dismissed in the tradition 'Chekov's Gun' manner. The audience is meant to forget about it and be somewhat confused when it is reintroduced. Rian Johnson has made a career out of using Noir tropes like this. A lot of people also appear to be missing the subtext of the entire film, which is parenthood. The Bridges/Gat kid relationship in question is not 'are they the same person' but 'are they father and son'. The film doesn't answer it because it doesn't need to. It's not an important plot point, it's a side note and the audience can figure it out on their own. Or argue about it later in the car. Looper has the misfortune of being released to mainstream audiences expecting mainstream, surface-level filmmaking.

Probably because the telekinesis storyline was forgotten for half the movie and the ending was weak. I also could have sworn Jeff Bridges was the future version of the blond "gat" kid - but they ended up doing nothing with both those characters. Waste.

That said, JGL and Willis were both amazing! I wish it had been better as well.

This movie is fantastic. Despite borrowing so many elements and having so many nods to previous iconic films, there was so much originality to this one that left me stunned. Gordon-Levitt is now one of my all-time favorite actors, and to have him star opposite Bruce Willis as his younger self with the slight facial modifications was a treat in and of itself. I can't wait to add this to my collection. Hoping for a store-exclusive cover art special edition. Maybe with a snazzy lenticular slipcover? Please?

Gabe Powers wrote: I know I'm going to regret biting this bait, but, what the hell are you talking about?

Well...big country house, single mother who develops a relationship with the hero, "special" boy (if I remember correctly there's even a shot of him in front of a door with orange lighting behind it), you know, that stuff...

Uniblab wrote: Went to see it based on all the fuss, for nothing...it only becomes mildly interesting in the middle when it's suddenly a "Close Encounters..." rip-off with Emily Blunt in Melinda Dillon's role.

I know I'm going to regret biting this bait, but, what the hell are you talking about?